I find it hard to believe you don't know that the parties of the 1860's and the parties of today aren't
quite the same, but here's a primer:
http://www.livescience.com/34241-democratic-republican-parti...
So, sometime between the 1860s and 1936, the (Democratic)
party of small government became the party of big
government, and the (Republican) party of big government
became rhetorically committed to curbing federal power.
Add on the Republican Party's Southern Strategy of the 60's and 70's, and it's pretty clear which of the two parties a KKK member would choose today. If the Southern Strategy isn't familiar, I'll let Ronald Reagan's Campaign Manager sum it up:
You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.”
By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires.
So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights,
and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now,
you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things
you’re talking about are totally economic things and a
byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.…
“We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the
busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than
“Nigger, nigger.”
http://www.thenation.com/article/170841/exclusive-lee-atwate...